IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/uea/papers/9803.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

On the theory of reference-dependent preferences (revised)

Author

Abstract

A theory is proposed in which preferences are conditional on reference points. It is related to Tversky and Kahneman's reference-dependent preference theory, but is simpler and deviates less from conventional consumer theory. Preferences conditional on any given reference point satisfy standard assumptions. Apart from a continuity condition, the only additional restriction is to rule out cycles of pairwise choice. The theory is consistent with observations of status quo bias and related effects. Reference points are treated as subject to change during the course of trade. The implications of endogeneity of reference points for behaviour in markets are investigated.

Suggested Citation

  • Alistair Munro & Robert Sugden, 2001. "On the theory of reference-dependent preferences (revised)," University of East Anglia Discussion Papers in Economics 9803, School of Economics, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK..
  • Handle: RePEc:uea:papers:9803
    Note: This is an updated version of the original 1998 paper.
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    To our knowledge, this item is not available for download. To find whether it is available, there are three options:
    1. Check below whether another version of this item is available online.
    2. Check on the provider's web page whether it is in fact available.
    3. Perform a search for a similarly titled item that would be available.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    status quo bias; behavioral economics; loss aversion; reference-dependence; prospect theory; general equilibrium;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D11 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Consumer Economics: Theory
    • D51 - Microeconomics - - General Equilibrium and Disequilibrium - - - Exchange and Production Economies

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:uea:papers:9803. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Cara Liggins (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/esueauk.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.